Hi, I’m Sally.
I am a writer who writes to help those feeling stuck in grief and pain to process loss and experience wholeness.
On the Blog
Today is Rare Disease Day. After years of seeing multiple doctors for strange and confusing symptoms, I was diagnosed with a rare disease in 2013. I have an autoimmune disease called Cicatricial Alopecia. It is a scarring alopecia which in my case has presented as Frontal Fibrosing Alopecia. This disease brings both physical and emotional pain. When hair dies, it hurts. There is itching, burning, and a sense that the scalp is crawling. Emotionally, it hurts to lose one’s hair because as women, our identity is often tied to our hair. Some of you have read my story before. Others have not. Here is my story.
In the summer of 1965, I was a young, idealistic preservice teacher who jumped at the opportunity to work as a teacher aide during the first summer of Project Head Start, an educational project aligned with my then budding belief system about the value of education and economic opportunity.
Teaching in a Toxic Environment. Twenty-six years ago today, I became very ill while teaching in a classroom with air full of toxic chemicals. On that day, I finally had enough documentation to show that the classroom was not a safe one for my students or for me. Many of the details of the initial exposure are fresh in my mind. It took me years to get over the emotional effects of learning I was teaching in a very unsafe environment. I believe I carry the physical effects of the chemical exposure in my body today. I’ve never again been healthy like I was twenty-six years ago. The doctor’s notes, the legal papers, tell the tale. If they weren’t in my possession, sometime I wonder if even I would believe this story of my first year of teaching.
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